Have you ever confused something in your head, or perhaps you've been calling things by the wrong name for too long because you thought they were the same? For example, some people call any brown soda "Cola," even if it's Pepsi or another similarly colored soda. This can happen for a variety of reasons, and it happens more often than you think. We're willing to bet you thought at least one of these things was the same, even though they absolutely weren't.
10. Cleft and crack
Okay, imagine you're out for a walk. The day is warm, the air is crisp and clean, and you're having a wonderful time. Life is good! But then, oh no, the ground cracks beneath your feet, and you plummet to your doom. Did you just fall into a crevice or a fissure? There's a right and a wrong answer here.
Although both words mean a crack in something, they don't refer to the same thing. Each stems from the Anglo-French word "cleft," meaning "to break," and for some reason, they are used differently.
A crevasse is a larger, deeper break in the ice that's typically used only to refer to ice. So, if you were walking on a glacier and it cracked, you'd fall into a crevasse. If the break was slightly smaller and occurred on the ground itself, you'd fall into a fissure. When used correctly, a crevasse is much less impressive; in fact, it may be just a surface crack. But a crevasse will seriously ruin your day.
9. TNT and dynamite
In the song by AC/DC called TNT The chorus assures listeners that TNT is dynamite. With all due respect to Bon Scott, this was wrong. Unless he was talking about his diversity, TNT and dynamite are not the same thing.
TNT is trinitrotoluene, a yellow crystalline substance. It was discovered in 1863, and although it is explosive, it is not as explosive as dynamite, but it is more stable.
Dynamite dates back to 1867 and was discovered by Nobel Prize-winning chemist Alfred Nobel. It's made from nitroglycerin stabilized with diatomaceous earth and sodium carbonate. It produced a safer explosive than good old nitro.
A stick of dynamite has a holding tube filled with an absorbent material coated with nitroglycerin and packed with other substances to stabilize it. It's incredibly different from TNT and, aside from its intended purpose, is almost completely different in every respect, especially chemically.
When first discovered, TNT was so difficult to detonate that it was not even classified as an explosive, unlike dynamite.
8. Pupa and cocoon
One of the most remarkable transformations in nature is the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. Since this isn't a magical act of rapid change, the caterpillar must prepare to become a bizarre new flying life form. How does it do this? Does it form a cocoon or a chrysalis? The answer is a chrysalis. No butterfly emerges from a cocoon, because they are not the same thing.
Moths are a good example of cocoon makers, and the difference between a moth cocoon and a butterfly chrysalis lies in how they are made. Like many creatures, a caterpillar grows by molting. This means it sheds its old skin as it grows beneath it. But when a caterpillar is about to become a butterfly, it never sheds its last skin. Instead, through a curious twist of biology, this skin hardens, forming an external chrysalis, which allows the butterfly to develop within.
When a caterpillar becomes a moth, it uses the silk it produces itself, and sometimes leaves and other bits of natural material, to form a cocoon around itself. The caterpillar builds the cocoon and then, safely tucked away, begins its transformation. Not all butterflies do this, but most do. However, no butterfly produces silk.
7. A heart attack is not cardiac arrest.
Let's say you're at a restaurant and the person at the next table clutches their chest and falls to the ground. Are they having a heart attack! Or are they going into cardiac arrest? Although these two terms are occasionally discussed in pop culture, they are not synonymous and do not refer to the same condition.
A heart attack can cause cardiac arrest, but two different things happen. A heart attack is caused by a blocked artery. Oxygen-rich blood can't reach the heart, and that part of the heart, cut off from oxygen and blood, begins to die. This process can be quick or prolonged, depending on several factors. If this occurs, you need to seek medical attention immediately, as the situation can and likely will worsen.
Cardiac arrest, which can again be caused by a heart attack, is when the heart stops pumping blood. However, it doesn't necessarily have to be caused by a heart attack, and any abnormal heart rhythm will prevent the heart from pumping blood throughout the body. Your heart stops beating, and you effectively die. Restarting your heart will require CPR or other medical intervention, otherwise you can die quickly.
6. Kilograms and pounds measure different things.
This is where it gets confusing. Obviously, pounds and kilograms are different units, but do they measure the same thing? You could also say that a person weighing 200 pounds weighs 90.72 kilograms. So, essentially, they're two ways of saying the same thing. Or so it would seem, but it's technically incorrect.
Pounds are actually a measure of force or weight, while kilograms are a measure of mass. For 200 pounds to equal 90.72, you have to agree that mass equals force. It's not the purest science, but it works for most of us, so we ignore it.
On Earth, none of this matters much. But if you went to the Moon, your mass would still be 90.72 kilograms, while your weight would be much less than 200 pounds. In fact, you'd weigh about six times less, because pounds measure the force of gravity acting on you, and gravity is less on the Moon.
Mass is a more reliable measure because it is very difficult to change, but weight can change under certain circumstances.
5. Snow leopards and leopards
Snow leopards are among the most beautiful and rare cats in the world. The WWF estimates their population to be between 4,000 and 6,500. They are perfectly suited to life in the harsh, snow-covered mountains, where their natural camouflage makes them nearly impossible to spot. It's also worth noting that they are not actually leopards, but members of the panther family.
Genetically, although they have spots one might expect from a leopard, they are more closely related to tigers. Overall, we recognize five species of big cats in the world: lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, and snow leopards, all of which live independently.
4. Concrete and cement
This is where people often get it wrong. When you walk your dog on the sidewalk, is it cement or concrete under your feet? If you want to be a bit of a semantic and technical geek, you could argue that both work, but we don't. You're walking on concrete. But there's cement there.
To make concrete, you'll need a few things. The first thing you need is cement. Cement is made from limestone, silica, and a few other ingredients that are fired and ground into a very fine powder. When you add water to this superfine powder, you get cement paste. That's halfway to concrete!
All you need to do now is add something like rocks or gravel, and you'll have concrete. To make proper concrete, the rocks should be no more than one inch in diameter. Of course, if you simply add sand, you'll have mortar.
Interesting fact! Since cement must be fired in a kiln to produce it, the chemical reaction releases a lot of CO2. Concrete is the most widely used substance in the world, and cement production accounts for approximately 8% of global CO2 emissions.
3. Strangulation and suffocation
It's late at night, you're walking through Camp Crystal Lake with Hannibal Lecter, trying to avoid the guy in the Scream mask, and you haven't slept in days because of Freddy Krueger. Suddenly, someone attacks you from behind and pulls a rope around your neck. Is it a choke, or are you being strangled?
Choking and asphyxiation are two completely different things. Simply put, choking is something that happens internally, while strangulation occurs externally. You might choke on a delicious burrito, but you'll be strangled by a rope.
More precisely, suffocation occurs when something blocks the trachea, preventing air from entering the lungs. Choking is when something presses on the neck and compresses the trachea, preventing airflow. Of course, this can happen accidentally, but far more often than choking, it can be intentional.
2. Macaroni and macaroons
For a long time, the average person probably had no idea what a macaron was. But then foodie culture exploded, everyone, including their uncle, was watching Iron Chef, and the discerning dessert lover in all of us was simply dying to try a delicious macaron. Or was it a macaroon?
Macarons differ from macarons in several ways. A typical macaroon is a drop cookie, meaning you scoop the mixture, drizzle it on with a spoon, and bam, there it is. They're made with coconut and whipped egg whites, baked, and coated in chocolate. Some people make them with oatmeal and a few other ingredients and make a no-bake version, sometimes called a haystack, which doesn't include eggs.
A macaron is a sandwich cookie where the sandwich part is an egg white meringue cookie that you bake. It should be slightly crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside, and quite thin. Then you fill the sandwich with some kind of cream, ganache, or something else.
The name is so similar because they have the same origins back in Italy, when both were made from ground almonds, and then evolved in different ways to become completely different treats.
1. Titles and subtitles
In 2022, a survey of 1,200 people found that 50% of us watch TV with subtitles, which is quite significant. So what makes subtitles so appealing? There could be several reasons, from poor audio mixing to poor speaker placement. But it's also worth remembering that subtitles and captions are different things, even though people use the terms interchangeably.
Subtitles are added to films many times by the filmmakers, and sometimes later by distributors if they are available in other language markets. They are designed to translate dialogue from one language to another, so you know what the characters are saying.
Subtitles, on the other hand, are designed for the hearing-impaired, so they can read the dialogue regardless of the language. This is what most people turn on these days to follow along, because it's too difficult to understand what people are saying on television, and no one seems to want to fix it.